The Iceman
by JPalmerGirl
Summary: People always told Matthew House that he was odd, different and strange. His older brother Gregory didn't like him, so he watched over him from afar. But after his older brother is shot on the job, Matthew won't remain in the shadows any longer. (Mycroft Holmes is Matthew House)


When other children were the same age as six year old Matthew House, they wanted action-figures, toys to play with, and they wanted to be pirates when they grew up, maybe even army men, they could talk and play for hours on end. But Matthew House didn't have such frivolous fantasies. No, Matthew House wasn't like other children, not in the slightest. He could read at the age of three and by the time he was six, instead of dreaming or playing about as young boys do, he was in his father's study, trying to configure a plan so that he could reach the highest level of encyclopedias on his absent father's shelf, the ones that he hadn't already read of course. He never could reach them, not quite. Not until, 'he' would fetch them for him. 'He' being the strange man that his Mother and Father told him was his older brother. They called him 'Gregory' and Matthew kept clear of him. Adults didn't take to him too kindly, they would whisper things, cruel things that Matthew had not yet taught himself to avoid and they questioned his parentage, his legitimacy. But Gregory was just as odd as Matthew, he made sarcastic remarks, was rude and cruel, but he saw things that normal people didn't. He saw the same things that Matthew did. Gregory made him feel less alone. He grew to like Gregory, but as he only came around for Christmas and the like, Matthew didn't get to see him very much.

Instead the child would entertain himself with literature and several other subjects, he taught himself how to perform basic arithmetic and beyond. He was a genius, a child prodigy, that was what his teachers would say. But the other children weren't so kind, they didn't understand the strange boy with the ginger curls and the piercing blue eyes, they didn't understand the vocabulary in which he spoke, it was quite advanced for a six year old, more in the range for a Highschool student, not a little boy in kindergarten. It was astounding and he excelled in all the academics that were thrown at him, but his genius only served to alienate him further from his fellow pupils. Soon it was clear enough that while Matthew excelled in school, his social interactions were greatly crippled. He didn't understand the pleasantries and rituals associated with being around other children his own age. He just didn't belong, and when a few courageous children tried to include him, he was lost as to what to do. He showed no emotion what so ever and that was how he earned his childhood nickname, something that stuck with him throughout the passing years.

The Iceman.

By the time Matthew was twelve, his parents had stopped thrusting him into school functions, stopped trying to make him into a normal child. So he grew inevitably silent and when he would speak, his voice was a perfectly measured monotone and when it was necessary to have inflection, he would provide it. Simple as that. But just as Matthew grew accustomed to the world he was in, Gregory was slipping off a cliff, it was a slow decline with no way to stop it. It all started when he got kicked out of medical school, Matthew heard his parents talking about it under their breath and it worried him. Gregory had been known to do reckless things when he was under stress and strain. But of all the stupid things he'd thought his brother would do, trying to end his life in the bathroom of their aging parents' house was not on that list. He'd just stood there as his brother sobbed in the shower as blood dripped down from his arms, from all the self-inflicted cuts that littered them. Gregory didn't see him through the shower curtain and Matthew didn't make a noise. His small socked feet padded across the floor and gently peeled back the curtain. Exposing his naked and bloodied older brother, the man gawked at him as the preteen stopped the water flow and extended a hand to his brother.

Once Gregory was out of the bathtub, Matthew let him flop bonelessly to the floor where the child grabbed the medical kit and gently cleaned the gouges in his brother's arms. He knew that Gregory felt things, things that Matthew didn't. Gregory wanted to feel nothing, he wanted to be blissfully numb and he would do anything to be able to get there, while Matthew, well he was numb all the time. It wasn't optional for him. The young man just sat there, propped up against the cabinets under the sink, staring silently as he watched his younger brother bandage the bleeding cuts, then he reached for a white fluffy towel and wrapped it around Gregory's shaking shoulders. Just as Gregory was slipping off into slumber on the cold bathroom tile, he heard his little brother's voice.

"They call me 'The Iceman' at school. They say that I'm different, that I don't feel anything. But when I see you like this, I worry. Please stop, Gregory."

The voice was sharp, perfectly calculated, perfectly measured in every way shape and form. It wasn't the voice of a twelve year old child, it was the voice of a serial killer, of a voice modifier, no human's voice was ever designed to sound like that. It stunned Gregory out of his sleep and he just clung to his little brother in surprise as the child heaved him to his feet and practically carried him down the hall, towards his bedroom. When the child deposited him in the bed, gently tucking him in and running the soft towel through his wet locks, the child's voice kept running through his head. It was terrifying to say the least. When Matthew moved to leave, Gregory's hand snaked out and caught the little boy by his thin and pale wrist. Matthew's eyes met Gregory's and he whispered something that concerned him greatly.

"You really don't feel anything, do you Mattie?"

"Feelings are meaningless, just chemical reactions in the brain decided by outer input. They don't mean anything. But I do feel, Gregory. Even though feeling is not an advantage, it is a weakness that humanity was created with."

Matthew felt his brother's hand slip from his wrist and Gregory turned over in his bed, pretending to be asleep as his younger brother closed the door softly and padded back towards the bloody bathroom. That was where the preteen spent most of his night, cleaning up the bathroom to make it just as spotless as their Mother had left it. Gregory wouldn't want them to know about what had happened and Matthew wouldn't tell. He never did. Gregory's mind was strange and it perplexed the younger boy, but there was something that Matthew would never forget or dismiss. His older brother worried him and he vowed to always be there for him. No matter what it was that the odd man needed.

When Matthew House was twenty two years old and working on his government career when he got a call from his mother. His brother'd had an infarction. Matthew had rushed there, only to find out that the idiot was refusing the leg amputation that was offered to him and instead vied for a procedure to bypass circulation around the dead muscle. Something that left him in extreme pain during the healing process. He would've died if it hadn't been for Stacy, his medical proxy at the time, she was the one who ordered for him to be put in a chemically induced coma. He almost died and Matthew blamed himself. He was so confused, so disoriented by the situation that he let Stacy do as she wanted. Even when she eventually decided to have the dead muscle surgically removed from his leg. They told him that it was going to save his brother's life and Matthew agreed. He only found out later that his very athletic brother was left with permanent intense pain in his right leg. And it was all Matthew's fault. Something that Gregory loved to remind him of. It was the last straw that broke the camel's back and Matthew left, his promise still heavy in his heart however. And as his influence in the government grew larger and larger, he would watch his brother from afar, always making sure that he was alright.

-TimeSkip(6years)-

Twenty eight year old Matthew House was one of the heads of the American government, when he wasn't busy being the head of the secret service or the CIA on a freelance basis. He was actually in a meeting when his assistant texted him, he suavely checked his phone under the table, without the rest of the heads seeing him and he froze. Matthew House's blood didn't run cold, Matthew House was rarely afraid, worried or upset. But when he saw the words that his assistant, Andrea, had texted him, suffice to say that young ginger haired man could've flipped the table and screamed in anger.

"Your mother called, your brother is in the hospital. He's been shot. Twice.

~Andrea"

Matthew stood up suddenly and sent the papers in front of him, fluttering upwards as he gave a false smile to the rest of the government officials, pleasantries that he quite frankly despised. He apologized for his hasty exit and expressed well wishes to each of them, sentiments that he didn't really feel in the slightest. But he escaped as soon as possible and called Andrea as soon as he was out in the hall, passing several stoic-looking guards as his own black suited bodyguards surrounded him. It was hard being the figure head of a government, you needed bodyguards because people would attempt to kill you otherwise.

"Hello, Andrea. Book us a flight to New Jersey as soon as possible. I don't care what strings must be pulled."

"Of course, sir."


End file.
